


A Beginner's Guide to Extermination & Espionage

by CaveDwellers



Category: Jak and Daxter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Daxter PSP Game, Gen, Hooo this boy's gonna get some character development whether he likes it or not, I swear this isn't a whump fic we've just got a LONG WAY TO GO, In Which Haven City is Both Setting and Antagonist, but maybe at the end there will be a ship waiting for him in Feelings Harbor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-23 03:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaveDwellers/pseuds/CaveDwellers
Summary: A lot happens in the two years Daxter's alone in Haven.
Relationships: Daxter & Jak, Daxter & Osmo, Daxter & Taryn, Daxter & Ximon
Comments: 17
Kudos: 8





	1. Autumn, Part I: Don't Get Caught Stealing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is entirely the fault of [Rhinocio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinocio/pseuds/Rhinocio). Until they wrote [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471778), my most positive feelings about Daxter were those of ambivalence.
> 
> Now I'm love him, and I'm writing this fic to convince you to join me. 
> 
> This story spans the two years Jak was in prison, and follows the events of the Daxter PSP game. My one deliberate deviation from the canon is that the Daxter game claims all of its events happen in the weeks/days before Daxter finds and rescues Jak from prison. I have decided to jettison that particular piece of information into the garbage can, where it belongs. You'll soon see why.
> 
> Also, I welcome feedback of every sort! I know I'm super duper late to this fandom, but if you're out there and reading this I'd love it if you said hi!

Stealing is harder than it sounds.

Daxter’s forgone his goggles and gloves in hopes that he’ll go unnoticed by the merchants in Haven City’s bazaar—nothing to see here, just another stray. If he walks on all fours like one of the many wretched, flea-bitten cats he’s run into the last week, his claws won’t click on the stones. It’s demeaning as hell, but it keeps him discrete and under the line of the merchants’ vision.

At this point, he’s desperate enough to call the humiliation worthwhile.

The fruit vendor’s closer; also, less likely to notice if one of his wares goes missing. The problem is, fruit simply isn’t enough. Daxter’s body metabolises it so quickly that it’s almost better to go without, because it leaves him even hungrier than he began.

What he wants—what he salivates at the very thought of—is meat. An animal instinct he should be too evolved to posses tells him that the protein would stay with him much longer, would actually leave him energized.

Of course, taking meat means dealing with the butcher, and that woman has no qualms fetching her thick-handled broom whenever she sees strays encroaching on her booth.

Daxter swallows before he starts slavering like an animal. Keep your movements unhurried and unenlightened—yes, just like that. Just another idiot stray, remember?

Damn, but that meat is so tempting. He can’t stop looking at it. Does he have the strength to make a run for it?

_Work hard and be grateful,_ echoes in the distance. Though the booth and its stern red insignia are several blocks away, ottsels apparently have stellar hearing. No matter where he goes, Daxter can’t escape those propaganda stations.

There’s an irony to hearing this particular mantra. Resentment roils in Daxter’s empty stomach. Never has he done so much for so little. He’s been surviving on whatever he can beg or swipe since that portal spat him out here a week ago, and all the human-shaped occupants of the rift rider were scattered. Presumably, the hulking figures in red armor arrested them all, but Daxter was only there to witness one.

_Don’t worry, Jak! I’ll save you before you know it!_

It’s gonna be real hard to do that if he dies of starvation, and a measly apple ain’t gonna be what keeps him alive.

He needs meat.

Daxter sets his sights on a goat haunch hanging from a flimsy looking string and makes a leap of faith.

Chaos erupts.

Daxter misjudges how far the jump is (or, more likely, he doesn’t have the energy to make it). Instead of the relatively cheap goat haunch, he lands on the display of premium yakkow sirloins. The butcher roars as the wooden table buckles from the impact and meat goes tumbling to the grimy cobbles. Daxter wheezes as the air is knocked out of him, rendering him prone.

“That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!” shrieks a patron.

“Kill it, kill it!”

“Oh, precursors, is it a mutant?”

The broom handle whistles through the air, and Daxter’s mind goes blank. All higher mental functions grind to a halt as he sucks in a grateful mouthful of foul city air and rolls, half a second before the handle finishes the job of destroying the display table. Fear and instinct drive him to shove as many of the sirloins as he can into his mouth and _run_.

Or, try to. The butcher’s no stranger to strays and the pandemonium they spark; in a single practiced movement, she traps him in place by stamping on his tail. Daxter yowls as he’s stopped dead in his tracks, the precious food falling from his jaws. Terror and pain are ice in his veins, and he does what he always does when he’s afraid for his life: he opens his mouth.

_“Yeotch,_ you rotten hag, watch the goods! Do you have any idea how much that _hurts?”_

The butcher stalls—staring, slack jawed, broom handle still poised above her head.

“It talks?!” comes the horrified cry from behind the butcher, one that quickly ripples through the crowd of shoppers. “Oh, gods, how is it _talking?”_

“Yer so lucky my buddy Jak ain’t here, otherwise he’d kick your sorry ass into next week!”

The pressure on his tail eases up as the butcher continues to stare, utterly gobsmacked by what is, to her mind, a talking mutant rat.

It takes longer than it should for Daxter to realize he’s inadvertently created an opportunity for himself.

His limbs are as heavy as boulders, but he forces himself to play the part, sitting up and yanking his bruised appendage out from under the woman’s boot. “You better watch it, lady, when he gets outta prison we’re coming for you. You’ll be the first.”

“It’s a trick,” the butcher mutters. “Has to be. Animals can’t talk.”

Oh, precursors, is he giving her an existential crisis? Does this butcher think of him as a manifestation of her worst nightmare?

Can he use this to his advantage?

“Not after you chop their heads off, they can’t,” Daxter retorts. “But you never asked, did you?”

Before the butcher can decide how to handle her sudden ethical quandary, Daxter’s stuffed the steaks back into his mouth and sprinted off. He hates leaving so much good food behind, but he’s faster when he travels on four legs, and the butcher isn’t going to fall for the same trick twice.

“Get the KG!” someone shouts behind him. “Or—or pest control!”

“Someone just shoot that thing!”

Daxter squeaks as the first obliging bullet crunches into the ground less than two feet away from him. Chipped stone stings as it ricochets into his side, but he keeps running until he finds a wall with enough structural damage to provide handholds. Then he climbs as though demons themselves are on his heels (they kinda are, if the hollering below him is any indication). He doesn’t stop climbing until his limbs are quaking with overexertion—about six stories up, as it turns out. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.

“Where did it go?”

“I can’t see it!”

“No point looking for it now, it’s long gone.”

“Was that actually a rat?”

_Sacrifice for your city, and all will prosper,_ the nearest propaganda booth adds. If Daxter truly thought any one or thing in this precursor forsaken city were on his side, he might even be grateful for this conveniently timed admonishment.

Instead, he chokes back a hysterical laugh as he forces his stiff, frightened jaw open. The steaks are gritty with crumbled mortar from the wall, pale with dirt and dust and cut through with dark streaks of saliva. The only place they still look clean and pink is where he’s been holding them in his mouth, marked by a ragged crescent where his sharp ottsel’s teeth have punctured the yakkow flesh.

Sure, he’s got a couple of steaks now, but what’s that worth when they’re disgusting, and he has no way of cooking them?

What’s worse, the filthy animal instinct that his hunger’s awakened wants to eat them, anyway. Without ever having to look in a book, Daxter possesses the innate knowledge that ottsels are omnivorous mammals; biologically, this body handles raw meat just fine.

Worse than worse, he’s pretty sure he’ll end up giving in, because he won’t have the strength to get down from this roof otherwise. He gags at the very idea, but he also can’t make himself throw the sirloins away.

If this stinking hellhole is what the numbskulls of this world (this dimension? Planet? Ugh, he’s never going to find out what really happened, is he?) call a _haven_ , then Daxter would hate to see what they call squalor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm starting a new job in two weeks and my goal is to off-season NaNoWriMo this shit and slam the whole story out by then.
> 
> All of which is to say: expect updates every Sunday til we done, son. 😎


	2. Autumn, Part II: Commit to the Con

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know it's Saturday but I'm really excited to share so close enough!
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that I've got a chapter count up now. This is a good sign! I'm only 2 chapters away from finishing the story, on my end--which means there won't be any fic abandonment here! Yay!

It isn’t until Daxter slinks into the richer neighborhoods and finally sees green that he realizes he’s been missing it. There was never a shortage of plants in Sandover; who might’ve thought he’d taken that for granted, all these years?

It’s also apparently autumn in Haven—well, that or leaves are turning orange and falling off to protest the spectacularly awful air quality.

Or, Daxter amuses himself, celebrating the arrival of yours truly.

Pfft. Yeah, right. Jak’s the only person who’s ever—

Nope, not going there. He’s here for opportunity, remember? Things didn’t go his way in the slums, or the slightly-better-than-slums, or the bazaar, or the gambling district, but these rich morons should be easy to manipulate. He got a set of steaks yesterday, and he’s only a little bit hungry right now; that’s a good start. He doesn’t intend to blow it now.

The affluent residents of Haven have prettily cultivated flower boxes hanging from their windows. Walkways are divided by planters verdant with trees and shrubberies and grassy groundcover. It’s nothing like a tropical island surrounded by glittering ocean, but all this green makes something in Daxter’s chest twinge anyway.

Whodda thunk he’d be homesick for the likes of Sandover?

It’s only by gazing with half-hearted nostalgia at a particularly vibrant garden display that he spots the Help Wanted sign in the window above it. Jackpot.

Alright, time to make a good impression. Goggles and gloves in place? Check. Charismatic grin? Check. Any conspicuously filthy spots on his pelt? Crap, yes—Daxter hesitates, avoiding thoughts of what he stepped through the last time he ran around on all fours, and then licks his hand and grooms the matted clump. Ottsel hair is oily, which is a blessing and a curse. For as much as it attracts dust and spider webs and caked on nastiness, it all brushes out easily.

Gods, does he miss having pants. Just because he’s covered in fur doesn’t mean he feels any better about being this exposed.

Focus, Daxter. The faster you make a good impression on these rich bozos and start earning some coin, the faster you’ll be able to find Jak and-and…

And what, stumble upon another mysterious rift in the universe that can transport them back to Sandover? Even if that were a realistic expectation—which it’s not—Jak wouldn’t leave without Samos and Keira, which means he and Daxter’ll have to find them, too.

Alright, he’s getting ahead of himself. First things first: moolah, so he can stop starving. The rest he’ll have to take as it comes.

 _Welcome not the unknown face,_ the propaganda booth informs Daxter as he marches up to the bougie storefront.

Oh, shaddap, ya heap of mechanical garbage. Nobody asked you.

Just as he’s about to throw open the door, fear sinks its teeth into him. What happens if he fails again? It’s not like there are any other neighborhoods to try. It’s not like Haven’s full of kindly souls willing to help a stranger in a strange land. If that were so, Daxter’s situation would have improved by now.

No, this is gonna work. It has to. All he needs is charm and confidence. He’s gonna make this happen.

“Good morning! The solution to all your problems has arrived!” he announces with aplomb as he struts into the shop of…

Well, as it turns out, it’s a clothing store. Not exactly his area of expertise, but he’ll make it work.

“Excuse me?” comes the confused call from deeper in the shop. A middle-aged man ducks his head in from the back room behind the register. “Did someone say something?”

“Yeah, I did. I said I’m here to solve your employee-related problems.”

“Hello? I can hear you, but I can’t see you.” The man walks around the register, head swiveling from side to side in futility.

Annoyed, Daxter clears his throat to catch the man’s attention. “Yeah, hi. Me here. I _said_ —”

“Well, if that isn’t just the darndest thing.” The man squats down in front of him, observing with childlike wonder. “How do you work, I wonder? Is it strings or animatronics?” He tilts his head up, looking for a marionette wheel that isn’t there.

“Look, do you want someone to work for you or not?” Daxter demands irritably. “Because I gotta say, old man, you’re making it real hard to have faith in you as a boss.”

The man blinks and leans back on his heels, startled but not offended. “What a remarkable creation! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I ain’t a thing, pal, I’m a _person_ , and I’m trying to make a living, here! Now, can we come to some kinda agreement?”

“Oh! You’re a ventriloquist, then? My apologies, technology is so uncanny nowadays.” The man straightens up and looks around his shop again, searching for something that isn’t there. “Where are you? I’d love to hear how you trained your pet to do this.”

“You know what? Forget it. I hate fashion, anyway.”

Daxter storms out of the shop to baffled calls of, “Is it because I didn’t offer to tip?”

Every time. Every, fucking, time.

How’s a guy supposed to make any headway in this town if every possible employer refuses to see him as something more than a parlor trick? Of course being trapped in an ottsel’s body is weird—you think Daxter doesn’t know that?—but a backwater island like _Sandover_ could get with the program, so what’s wrong with Haven? Do they put liquid stupid in the water supply?

Damn it, how’s he supposed to rescue Jak when he can’t even secure reliable food and shelter?

But how’s he supposed to do that when no one in this dump thinks he’s a person? And how’s he supposed to prove them all wrong if no one will give him a chance?

 _Without my strength, there would be no city,_ the propaganda station assures him.

Daxter drops into a pile of fallen leaves surrounding the base of one of the trees and tilts his head back against the trunk. His eyes are burning, and there is a scream of frustration coiled in the back of his throat. What he wouldn’t give to see this whole city burn right now.

Not that he has anything to give but the pelt on his back, but hey, it’s not like anyone’s asking him anyway.

The smart thing would be to figure out his next course of action—the next neighborhood, or the next place to steal from. His old buddy hunger’s gnawing on the edges of his awareness again, and at this point Daxter knows it won’t be long before desperation forces him to do things he’d rather not. Is this constant emptiness because he’s fifteen and that’s just what happens to teenagers, or it is an ottsel thing? It never used to take a measly week to force him into dire straits.

Say what you want about Sandover—and Daxter does—but at least he never went hungry in the village. It’s possible he was always ravenous and never noticed, because there was always something to eat.

You’d think someone like him would know better than to take such privilege for granted.

Daxter stares up through the tree’s thinning branches. He can never tell if Haven’s sky is grey because of constant pollution, the constant sweltering humidity, or the constant cloud cover (or all three), but he’s never seen the sun here. Never seen blue sky.

So, what now? He’s too stubborn to lay down and die, and he’s too fed up to go back and try sweet talking that idiot shopkeeper into giving him the job anyway.

If Jak were here, they’d—

Fuck, that’s it. That’s the difference.

After Daxter climbed out of that dark eco three feet shorter and covered in fur, Jak vouched for him. He gave Daxter’s new form authenticity by forcing the villagers to still acknowledge his personhood, despite his fuzzy state.

Without Jak’s wordless insistences that the ottsel on his shoulder was, in fact, his best friend, would Sandover have treated Daxter any differently than the people here?

Shit.

That’s the secret. Daxter’s never going to make headway in this town if he doesn’t have someone who can authenticate him.

But how to get someone on his side when there’s no one to vouch for him?

Alright. Alright, he’s one step closer to a solution, he just—he needs to move. Get some blood flowing, help himself think this through. Daxter pushes himself to his feet and starts walking on two legs through the tidy, well maintained streets of this opulent district. It doesn’t matter where his feet are taking him, frankly, because right now it’s all the same; all they need to do is keep him moving.

His mind’s still spinning through schemes and possibilities when he makes the belated realization that he’s been following his nose. It’s the scent of meat again—hungry ottsels, it seems, have the power to sniff it out, no matter how far away the source.

He doesn’t recognize where he is, but that’s nothing new. His nose has led him to some rich person’s townhouse, beneath an open window on the ground floor. It becomes immediately obvious why when he takes a few steps back and sees a rotund crocodog lazily nibbling at cubes of fresh meat and vegetables in a chrome dish.

There’s no way it could be that easy, could it? The crocodog’s so overweight and content it likely wouldn’t even put up a fight, and the window’s wide open, it’s _right there._

“Rosie-girl!” comes a woman’s voice, and the best word Daxter has for it is _loaded._ That, right there, is the voice of a person who has never worked a day in their life, and likely never will. “Where’s my little croco-dumpling, hm? Come here, sweet girl!”

Rosie the crocodog immediately perks up. With a friendly _boof,_ she waddles off to heed the call of her owner.

By the time Rosie’s rounded the corner into a lavishly decorated hallway, Daxter’s stashed his goggles and gloves behind a nearby crate and swung himself onto the windowsill of a spacious dining room. Is stealing food from a bowl covered in crocodog drool disgusting? Yes, yes it is, but considering easy this is going to be, how fat that crocodog is, and the unimaginable wealth all around him, this is the closest he’ll ever come to a victimless crime.

He’s too busy stuffing his face to notice the advancing footsteps, or be suspicious of their presence when their owner just called her pet into the other room. He just about jumps out of his skin when he hears, “Oh my goodness, and who is this? Rosie, have you made a new friend?”

In that moment Daxter has two choices, and one look at the woman’s too-trusting features is all the encouragement he needs to roll the dice. If all goes well, then no one will ever need to know he’s stooped this low.

He’s never heard of anyone having a pet ottsel, and there are no innate animal instincts to guide him on what a dumb and friendly one might act like, but here goes nothing. Daxter makes his eyes wide and his expression vacant before scampering over to her and rubbing against her calves like a cat. When he rounds the corner of her leg he comes face to face with Rosie the crocadog, but Rosie’s all open-mouthed panting and wagging tail. He forces himself to endure the absolute _indignity_ of having the crocodog sniff between his legs, but pointedly does not return the favor. He may be pretending to be a stupid animal in the hopes that this rich fool will keep and provide for him (and, maybe, eventually come to vouch for him), but he’ll _never_ be that desperate.

Rosie woofs her approval of this newcomer, even tries to lick Daxter’s face. He makes a convenient excuse of making the circle around the rich woman’s legs again.

Why does this feel like the worst kind of pole dance?

“Oh, what a sweetie you are! I wonder where you came from.” She leans down and pets a long line from the crown of his head to the end of his tail, and that—okay, that actually feels kinda nice.

Then the woman scoops him up into her massive cleavage, and… alright, he can’t be mad about that, either. She’s certainly not his type, but she’s all soft curves—rotund, just like her crocodog—and that makes for the best kind of hug.

Gods, he’s missed the kind touch of another person about as much as he misses pants. It ain’t a chore to lean into the embrace.

Suddenly, the woman jerks away and covers her nose. “Oh, goodness! You’ve really been through it, haven’t you, little guy? Would you like me to give you a bath?” She notices the longing look Daxter gives Rosie’s abandoned bowl of food, and continues as if he’s spoken aloud. “There, there, we’ll get you something to eat, I promise, but if you’re going to be this cuddly then I really must insist on a bath first. Come on, Rosie, let’s get our new friend cleaned up!”

Actually, a bath sounds wonderful. Daxter has long since gone nose-blind to his own stench, but he dug through someone’s garbage for scraps of food just this morning, and he’s been sleeping in grimy alleyways for the last week; there’s no way he smells like a bouquet of roses.

It isn’t until he’s been plunked into a claw-foot tub in an overlarge bathroom that he realizes the horrible trade off for this pampering: he’s supposed to be a dumb animal that doesn’t know how to bathe itself.

This complete stranger is going to _wash him,_ and if he wants to be adopted into a life of luxury, he’ll have to let her.

Daxter pushes the idiot-animal-who’s-not-used-to-having-baths act as far as he can. Scrubbing down his back? Feels like a massage. Washing behind his ears, or between the toes of his paws? Go for it. However, as soon as the bar of soap goes near his underbelly, he squirms like a freshly caught fish. There’s only so much he is willing to tolerate for the sake of food and shelter, and he does have _some_ modesty.

“Whoa! Okay, okay, I get it,” the woman soothes. She stops her methodical scrubbing of one of his back paws and pets his head, ostensibly to sooth him from how he spooked. “No belly rubs, I promise. You don’t have to splash anymore.”

The towel she uses is soft and fluffy and has the fur on his back crackling with static. She leaves the rest damp, and Daxter’s grateful that what little privacy this form allows can still be respected.

The woman—he still hasn’t learned her name—carries him like a baby as she strolls into an unsurprisingly large, well-stocked kitchen, humming a friendly tune and chatting to Daxter and Rosie all the while.

“Now that you’re all clean and feeling better, let’s see what we can do for food, hm? You’re so skinny, you poor thing.” She sets him down with a fond scratch behind his ears, and Daxter endures yet another inspection from Rosie—who is positively stymied by why he smells so different now—while the woman mutters to herself about ottsel diets.

“Oh, wouldn’t it be convenient if you just tell me what you like to eat, little guy? I don’t want to make you sick, but I’ve never had a pet like you before.” She hums as she regards the contents of her icebox. “Well, you didn’t seem to mind having what Rosie has, so maybe we’ll start there…”

Daxter wants to lay face down on the floor. Would it really be so bad if he just spoke up?

Oh, who is he kidding, she’ll scream if he speaks up. There are so, so many reasons why choosing to open his big mouth now instead of ten minutes ago is a terrible idea.

The grub already smells amazing, and she hasn’t even done anything to it. Do it for the food and shelter, Daxter. You tried making it on your own, and it didn’t work out. You’re just doing what you gotta to survive.

Besides, if playing dumb is all he’s gotta do in order to have his most basic needs met, that’s not so bad. Samos would say that’s what he’s best at.

Daxter hopes that cantankerous old fart rots in prison.

It isn’t until Daxter’s eaten his fill of good, clean food, and slurped two bowls of fresh water, until his benefactor sets him up with one of Rosie’s old baskets from when she was a croco-pup, that doubt starts to set in.

Now what?

As soon as the question arises, a cold sensation snakes down his limbs. How’s he going to find Jak from here? Does this lady have a job that she goes to during the day, or is she home all the time?

Considering it’s the middle of the day now, and she’s puttering around the townhouse like she’s got all the time in the world, Daxter’s got a sinking suspicion it’s the latter.

Alright, he adjusts things so he sneaks out at night while she’s asleep. That’s doable. The absence of toys around the house assure him there will be no children who want to play with him, and the lady herself seems to have no expectations—now that he’s clean and fed, she’s left him to his own devices.

Well, no. She’s left him to pretend to be an idiot housepet. That’s what she expects of him.

Can he keep up this charade, long term?

This woman has been nothing but good to him, and in Daxter’s life that’s a rare and precious thing. He’s gonna feel awful for taking advantage of her kindness for the next however-long, and then just up and disappearing once he finds Jak.

What other choice does he have, though?

He sleeps, and it’s the best sleep he’s had since crash landing in this forsaken city. There are no words to describe how good it is to finally have his basic needs met. Why would he ever want to give this up, when it’s the best thing that’s happened to him here?

Except there’s an uneasy feeling in Daxter’s gut as he wakes, one that has nothing to do with food. He’s better rested than he’s been in a week, warm and full and contented, and—

And he can’t stand himself. He’s the jerk in this situation; manipulating the nicest person in this town makes him no better than any of the people he’s been disparaging since he got here.

He can’t stay. He wants to—precursors know how he wants to, because it’d be _so_ _easy_ to keep having everything taken care of for him by the most motherly lady in existence—but he… he can’t.

If things ever truly go to hell, he’ll come back. She’s so kind she probably won’t even blink, and it’s nice just knowing there will be someone to help put him back together, if he needs it.

Daxter gives himself a full day at the townhouse. While he’s there, he eats and sleeps as much as he can—and, when the lady offers, he never turns down the opportunity for a hug. He’s an idiot, and he knows that he’s an idiot, but his bastard of a conscience has made up its mind.

Being a housepet simply isn’t what he’s here to do.

So it is that, on his second night in the townhouse, Daxter goes to the icebox and guiltily stuffs his face with one last round of food. He slips out into the darkness through the same window he initially snuck in through. Before he goes, though, he folds the blanket he’s been sleeping on before leaving it next to Rosie’s old croco-pup basket. It’s stupid to show even this small courtesy when he’s leaving like this, and she won’t understand how the blanket folded itself because dumb animals can’t fold laundry, but he can’t help himself.

He doesn’t have another way to say thank you.


End file.
